Eye and hearing health clinic held  in UK Parliament Building

Eye and hearing health clinic held  in UK Parliament Building

Experts from Specsavers have held an eye and hearing health clinic in the UK Parliament – with MPs and peers also given a virtual reality insight into sight conditions.

Parliamentarians from various parties attended the drop-in clinic for eye and hearing checks on 2 December. Community optometrists and audiologists staffed the session, using an OCT machine, a virtual reality headset simulating sight loss, a hearing screener and a digital otoscope.

‘We welcomed MPs and peers across the day, with the Specsavers team on hand to also talk about the role of optometry and audiology in neighbourhood health care,’ says Paul Morris, director of professional advancement at Specsavers.

The clinic was also an opportunity to talk about the key recommendation from the 2025 access to care report published by Specsavers in September, which brought together senior voices from across the health system.

Mr Morris says: ‘The report highlights how successful neighbourhood NHS schemes, such as glaucoma community services delivered by optometrists, work in parts of the UK while patients in other areas face a health postcode lottery.

‘A key recommendation of the report is that these successful community schemes, including an NHS primary care audiology service for adults, must be expanded to improve access to care.’

The Specsavers team brought a virtual reality headset with them as well to give parliamentarians an insight into what patients with eye conditions, such as glaucoma, see and experience.

‘It brought home the impact of eye diseases,’ notes Mr Morris. ‘It prompted conversations about the importance of continuing to raise awareness of eye health – including regular eye health checks – to prevent avoidable sight loss.’

He adds: ‘We also talked about how community optometrists, dispensing opticians, audiologists and their teams have the expertise, care and capacity to do more. Fully using the skills of these sectors would be good for patients, ease pressure on hospitals and support government goals to shift healthcare from hospital to community.’